Transcript Episode 119: Irregularity is all over the place

[Music]

Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that’s enthusiastic about linguistics! I’m Gretchen McCulloch.

Lauren: I’m Lauren Gawne. Today, we’re getting enthusiastic about irregularity and the consistent inconsistency of language. But first, we have new merch!

Gretchen: Okay, backstory. We’ve used the metaphor of a musical instrument several times when talking about how the human vocal tract is organised and how you can change the shape of your mouth as the air is on the way out, which changes what the air sounds like, which is true for both the mouth and a musical instrument.

Lauren: We’ve used a couple of different musical instruments as metaphors – the “meat clarinet,” the “meat bassoon,” the “meat bagpipe.”

Gretchen: But I just can’t get that original imagery of the meat clarinet out of my head. Maybe it’s because I played clarinet in high school – who knows. Lauren has very generously allowed me to persuade her that what we really need in our lives is some art of the human vocal tract and a clarinet merged together in meat colours.

Lauren: To be clear, YOU need this in YOUR life. This art is deeply cursed, and I will not be buying any.

Gretchen: This art speaks to my soul. Our artist Lucy Maddox did an amazing job, knocked it out of the park (as usual). Lingthusiasm patrons can even see (behind-the-scenes) some stetches of the several horrifying meat textures that she offered us as we were coming up with this design.

Lauren: Truly one of the most terrifying design briefs I have ever had to write.

Gretchen: Go have a look at the meat clarinet – available on all Lingthusiasm social media – and tell us if you love or hate it.

Lauren: As people have pointed out, this is not actually an anatomically accurate drawing because the mouth at the end of the meat clarinet would have to be your mouth. That was even more disturbing if we tried to line all that up.

Gretchen: [Gretchen shushes Lauren] Just me have my body horror in peace, okay? The meat clarinet is available on stickers, mugs, t-shirts, other horrifying objects. You can follow the merch links on our website or social media to see it for yourself and decide if you are #TeamLauren or #TeamGretchen on this front.

Lauren: Something I am really excited about is this is the first time we have launched merch with its very own zine.

Gretchen: A “zine” is a miniature DIY magazine (hence the name) which you can reproduce yourself on a photocopier. We’ve been experimenting with making zines about linguistics over the past couple months so that we have something to give out to people at conferences and other types of events.

Lauren: We’re making all the Lingthusiasm zines available as PDFs on the Lingthusiasm website. You can print them out yourself if you want to spread the joy of linguistics.

Gretchen: We’ve heard from a lot of listeners over the years that Lingthusiasm helped you get into linguistics, and now you’re trying to share that with your friends, family, classmates. Sometimes, it can be a pretty big ask to get someone to listen to a whole half-hour episode, so what if you could just hand them a fun little mini zine with illustrations as an easier starting point?

Lauren: We’ve shared a couple of zines on Patreon already. Gretchen’s been sharing production updates through Patreon’s Quips feature. If you want to be in the loop on this new little project, you can see future zines and you can give feedback before they’re live for everyone.

Gretchen: Our first three zines are one from me about bouba and kiki, a zine from Lauren about gestures (surprise surprise), and an extra teeny-tiny zine about making words for small things from our technical editor Leah Velleman.

Lauren: Thanks to everyone who’s been following along for your enthusiasm about the zines. We love seeing photos of where they show up in your lives.

Gretchen: You can print off a copy or two to put on your bookshelf, your coffee table, your bulletin board – wherever people might see it. A few people have already told us that they are leaving them in little free libraries or putting them on zine swap racks, which I just think is so cute.

Lauren: I’ve been using the photocopier at work to print out copies to share with colleagues and students for educational purposes.

Gretchen: Of course. If you get inspired to make any linguistics zines, or you know of other existing linguistic zine projects, let us know! You can read the new meat clarinet zine and all Lingthusiasm zines so far at lingthusiasm.com/zines.

Lauren: Our most recent bonus episode was all about poetry and how the structure of language shapes the structure of the style of poems.

Gretchen: To listen to this and over 100 bonus episodes, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm.

[Music]

Lauren: Language loves a pattern. Gretchen, we’re gonna do a pattern recognition pop quiz. Are you ready?

Gretchen: I love a pattern, too.

Lauren: Dog and dogs, cat and cats, chicken and –

Gretchen: Chickens.

Lauren: Great work. Okay, now –

Gretchen: As you might’ve guessed from making a podcast in English, I am, in fact, an English speaker.

Lauren: Okay, now: child and –

Gretchen: Children.

Lauren: Correct.

Gretchen: Not “childs.”

Lauren: Not “childs.” Sheep and –

Gretchen: Sheep.

Lauren: Yes. Unless you’re talking about many breeds of sheeps, and then I guess that’s possibility okay on analogy with “fishes.” Person and –

Gretchen: People.

Lauren: Yes. Although, I do notice when there’s police reports, and they talk about “persons unknown.”

Gretchen: Right. Or sometimes “peoples of the world” to refer to ethnic groups or cultures.

Lauren: Oh, yeah, pluralising the plural is extra nifty.